You may not even know you’re being tracked, whether online or offline. Once you do know, it’s hard to feel safe again. Which is why most victims of stalking need to seek help, doctors say

Stalking, even if does not cause physical injury, can leave deep psychological scars ranging from post-traumatic stress disorder to paranoia, withdrawal and sleeplessness.(HT Illustration: Shrikrishna Patkar)

Stalking has led to three deaths across India over the past 10 days. On June 27, A Vinupriya, 21, killed herself in Salem, Tamil Nadu, after two morphed pictures showing her face on a bikini-clad body appeared on Facebook. P Suresh, 21, confessed to stalking her online after she refused to marry him.

On June 24, Infosys employee S Swati, 24, was hacked to death at a Chennai railway station while she was on her way to work. Her attacker is still untraceable, but the police say it was probably someone known to her because bystanders said the two had a heated argument before the killer attacked her with a machete.

On June 23, Hitesh (who goes by only one name) hanged himself in his Indore home after receiving 351 missed calls in a single day, from his girlfriend. She had filed a rape case against him six months earlier and had been calling him 300 to 400 times a day, for weeks.

And then there are victims like Snapdeal employee Dipti Saran, 24, who was abducted at knifepoint from outside a Metro station in Ghaziabad on February 10 and held captive for three days. Among the five arrested were Devendra, who obsessively stalked her for more than a year.

Stalking, even if does not cause physical injury, can leave deep psychological scars ranging from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to paranoia, withdrawal and sleeplessness.

“The casualties show how serious the problem really is and what can happen when obsession overrules reason,” says psychiatrist Dr Yusuf Matcheswalla of Mumbai’s Masina Hospital, who treats stalkers and counsels those who have been stalked.

Though the word stalking is increasingly used to describe social voyeurism akin to gossiping — looking up someone online before an appointment, tracking partners and frenemies on Facebook or Twitter — it has a far darker and more threatening reality. Several cases are not reported because the victims either don’t take the threat seriously or are too embarrassed to mention it to friends and family, leave alone the police.

Stalker-led abductions and deaths are rare, but stalking — defined as wilful, malicious and repeated unwanted attention, harassing, violating or threatening the victim — can end in other forms of violence, such as vicious personal attacks on social media, wrecking of property and, in some cases, molestation and assault.

What makes a person so fixated with someone that he/she cannot stop themselves from intrusively texting, calling or following their victim? Is the obsessive behaviour fuelled by delusion or does narcissism, lack of empathy and an overriding sense of entitlement also play a role?

“All stalkers are psychologically unstable, either delusional that the person is in love with them or with an undiagnosed psychosis that makes them fixated on somebody,” says Dr Samir Parikh, director of mental health and behavioural sciences at Fortis, Gurgaon.

Most stalkers are sociopaths who aren’t discomforted or embarrassed if caught or humiliated publicly and never seek treatment.

Much like sex offenders, stalkers can rationalise their behaviour and are indifferent to victims’ sufferings. “People may ask, why did the young man who’s ex called him 351 times simply not change his number? He didn’t because he knew she wouldn’t stop and would find a way to get to him,” says Dr Parikh.

SEEKING HELP

Victims of stalking almost always need therapy. “As many as 80% are at risk of PTSD, which causes symptoms like extreme anxiety, sleeplessness, palpitation, flashbacks etc,” says Dr Parikh.

He recently treated a 22-year-old brought in after she quit her job and turned recluse. Weeks earlier, a stranger had walked up to her to say he had been following her for months and had quit his job for her. “The thought of someone shadowing her without her knowledge made her feel insecure, threatened. She needed weeks of counselling to reclaim her life,” says Dr Parikh.

Fear, trauma, paranoia, thoughts of being killed or killing oneself, doubting one’s own character and wondering ‘Did I provoke it’, are some overbearing thoughts that victims come to us with, adds Dr Matcheswalla.

When men are at the receiving end, it can be even more complicated. Last June, Dr Parul Tank, consultant psychiatrist and therapist at Mumbai’s Fortis Hospital, counselled Arijit*, a 25-year-old stalked by a woman 10 years older.

“She would show up outside his home and his office building, send him angry or lewd texts on WhatsApp. He didn’t know how to deal with it and feared how people might react if he said he was being stalked,” says Dr Tank. It was when she threatened suicide that Arijit called her father. “They brought her to me, and by then, Arijit too needed counselling,” says Dr Tank.

RAISING THE ALARM

Stalkers are usually people you know — an ex, someone you went to school with, a Facebook friend, a colleague, a neighbour — and it usually begins innocuously.

Trust your instincts and do not downplay a perceived threat, because it usually begins with seemingly harmless gestures.

“If you got 200 messages in one day you’d immediately file a police complaint, but stalking usually doesn’t start out like that,” says Dr Tank. “It starts with small acts that cause a vague sensation of discomfort. So it’s important to stay alert and communicate with friends and family the minute you feel uncomfortable.”